Uzbekistan intends to use methanol as gasoline additive
By Aynur Jafarova
Uzbekistan's Uznefteproduct Company intends to follow the example of fuel producers from neighboring China and to use methanol as a gasoline additive in order to compensate shortcoming in combustibles.
The methanol mixture has been actively used for already several years in China as well as in some U.S. states, such as California. It is marked by the M85 subscript and consists of 85 percent of methanol and 15 percent of unleaded gasoline. Cars on this fuel are especially common in California.
The methanol fuel can be used not only in vehicles designed for the consumption of pure methanol and methanol - gasoline blends, but can also be used to drive the vehicles originally designed to run on gasoline and subsequently converted to methanol consumption. It is used in more than 70 countries around the world and some of them have advanced so far it has become a primary fuel.
Methanol burns five times slower than gasoline and it is much easier to extinguish. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that the use of methanol will result in a 95 percent reduction in the number of casualties from vehicle fires.
Vehicles running on methanol fuel with a lower combustion temperature emit slightly less carbon dioxide, significantly less hydrocarbons and much less NOx compounds than their gasoline analogues.
Methanol can be an alternative to conventional transportation fuels. The benefits of methanol include lower production costs (methanol is cheap to produce relative to other alternative fuels), improved safety (methanol has a lower risk of flammability compared to gasoline) as well as increased energy security (methanol can be manufactured from a variety of carbon-based feedstocks, such as coal). Use of methanol could also help to reduce dependence on imported petroleum.
Cars on the methanol basis can operate 25-30 percent more efficiently than the ones with conventional gasoline engines and have approximately the same efficiency as those with diesel engines.
In the near future it is planned to start the construction of a gas chemical complex with a capacity of 500,000 tons of methanol per year in the Bukhara region. It will enable Uzbekistan to develop its own standard of gasoline and alcohol blend.
Uzbekistan is rich in hydrocarbon resources. About 60 percent of the Uzbek territory possesses potential oil and gas reserves. The projected reserves of hydrocarbons are about 10 billion tons of standard fuel, while prospective ones amount to about 2 billion tons.
Currently, there are five oil and gas regions in Uzbekistan - Ustyurt, Bukhara-Khiva, Surkhandarya, Hissar and Fergana - and three promising ones (Khorezm, Middle Syr Darya and Zarafshan).
Some 211 hydrocarbon fields have been discovered in oil and gas-rich regions of the country, 108 of which are gas and gas condensate fields while 103 are oil and gas, oil-gas condensate and oil fields. More than 50 percent of the fields are under development while 35 percent are ready for exploration. The exploration work is underway at the rest of the deposits.